How To Start a Cleaning Business

If you are one of those people that decided 2019 will be the year you will be starting your very own cleaning service business, you are on the right site. According to some reports, back in 2015, the cleaning services area generated around $41.7 billion. In addition, it is also expected the business to grow to $46.3 billion when 2020 rolls by. Many people consider starting the cleaning service business is very profitable since there will always be houses that need cleaning. Also, it’s considered to be a job people are eager to give up. In addition to being considered very high potential profit business, the standards to enter this business are quite low. Welcome on our site (name of your site) and today in this article we are going to talk about how to start a cleaning service.

Since there are many new people showing interest in this business, we are also going to talk about how to start a cleaning service from scratch. Moreover, we are going to focus more on starting a cleaning business, is it worth and how much to charge along with many other things. Because there are many other cleaning services on this day available, we are going to make sure to help you go on the right track and make sure you are one of the best in the cleaning services business.

How to Start a Cleaning Service from Scratch

First of all, make sure you love this job before starting the business. Well, considering you are here, you are probably ready and certain you want to start your own cleaning service. Now, the first step you want to make is to pick your name for your business before going any forward. The name of the cleaning company you are about to pick must be relative to your business. What do we mean when we say this? Well, when reading, theMaids, MollyMaids or MerryMaids, what comes to your mind. The name must be considered how it will look in the client’s eyes. According to many reports, a trademarked name, in the mind of the clients shows to be more reputable, established and of course, more professional.

If you are still wondering how to start a cleaning service, we want you to think first of a name for the company you are about to start. We want you to give some more thinking to the name because it’s one of the first and crucial steps you are making towards starting your own business. Furthermore, a name that involves someone’s name seems to be proven unprofessional, probably cheap and not well established to the mind of the clients. Make sure to pick your name that stands out from the rest and is unique.

Legal Requirements when starting a cleaning business

One of the other stuff we are going to talk about while we are on how to start a cleaning service business is the legal side. It’s a well-known fact that before doing your first cleaning service; you will need to pick what business structure you’ll have. You can talk about this a little bit more with your lawyer or you can google it and read on your own. The next step after deciding the business structure you’ll have is to register your business name with your local register of deeds office if you are registering as an individual proprietorship. As a matter of fact, this can be done with many online legal document services such as LegalZoom or Docracy. However, you can do this all by yourself. It’s completely up to you.

In addition, if you are planning on hiring people or you don’t want to associate your business with your social security number on your taxes, you will have to obtain an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS. Our advice about the legal side is talking entirely with the lawyer since he/she will be doing the job they are hired to do.

Determining the budget to start a cleaning business

It’s quite clear when you are starting your own cleaning service; you’ll need a budget in order to start the business. It’s one of the crucial steps when learning how to start a cleaning service. According to many other cleaning business owners, around $2,000 will keep you covered if you decide to start. However, our team gathered a bunch of things you can expect of estimated expenses when starting.

Insurance – $500 to $3,500 on yearly basis and also depends on the number of staff.

Permits and Licenses – around $30 to $60 if you decide to register as an individual proprietorship. Or the number can be from $100 to $500 if you decide to register as LLC (Limited Liability Company).

Cleaning Products and Equipment – from $300 to 600 depending on the type of tools.

Labor – around $11 on hourly rate per worker.

Advertising – for online and print marketing from $100 to $200.

If you sum up our numbers, you can start a new and fully working cleaning service company for just $930. As a matter of fact, the low startup budget needed for this business is the reason there are more than 900,000 cleaning companies in the United States. Many people, including us, advise potential starters for this business to go with around $2,000 even though you can start it with as low as $1,000. The reasons are simply because there is always unplanned stuff going on when starting a business, so having a little extra money won’t hurt.

Is It worth Starting a Cleaning Business?

When we are talking about how to start a cleaning service, is it worth is a part we must cover. This is the second thing we are going to focus on since you are planning to start a business to make money. So, is it worth starting a cleaning business? This is one of the most asked questions when it comes to opening cleaning services. There are many people that say the cleaning business is everywhere and is very hard to get going and get your first job. However, that is not entirely correct. As a matter of fact, according to the United States cleaning industry report stats, it’s estimated that opening a cleaning service company is not a bad decision at all.

Not only that being an owner of a cleaning service company is awesome but it’s also more than obvious that there is money to be made just by opening a cleaning business company alone. Keep in mind that many people think of the cleaning business as an easy job. However, as in all other jobs there are pros and cons. Since we are on the topic is it worth starting a cleaning service, let’s take a closer look at the positive and negative stuff about this business. Our team has gathered some of the most positive and negative stuff in order to help you decide if you are ready for this business.

Pros of starting a cleaning business

According to many owners of cleaning services, there are plenty of positive sides to starting a cleaning company these days. You definitely need to think through all the benefits of this industry, even though it may seem too confident to even jump and think about the possible profits.

Flexibility – You can be the boss of your cleaning business and be self-employed. What do we mean with this? Well, it’s quite simple, it means you will work just for yourself, set your own working schedule, arrange meetings with clients and of course, have complete control of your business. In addition, this flexibility in this business makes it awesome fit for a side job gig.

No experience required – One of the most positive sides for this business and one of the best reasons why people start this business. This business doesn’t require new potential owners to be the next Bill Gates in order to run a successful cleaning business. You just need the proper motivation, hard work, commitment and determination to start arranging your customers.

Low costs required for a startup – Starting a cleaning service company requires low startup costs. This is amazing since everyone who is interested in this business has the opportunity to start because the startup costs are relatively low. Mainly you’ll need a few cleaning items and the proper motivation in order to succeed.

Work from home – Another reason why people opt to start a cleaning service is that they are generally started from garages and homes. The ability to organize everything and setting up the model from your house even let people run the company from the home locations in the start. And there is a simple reason for that, there is no need for warehouse, shop floor or office required to start.

Cons of starting a cleaning business

As we mentioned before, there are always in all business positive and negative sides. Before going deeper in the negative sides, we just want you to remember that owning your own business and being your own boss is a mood that gives you the proper freedom you need to make decisions, express and think on your own. However, according to other people, starting a cleaning company can still be a tough challenge simply because there are reasons that may make you change your mind.

It’s competitive – It’s a well-known fact that the cleaning business is a tough battle with your competitors. Since there are tons of cleaning services these days, it makes it harder to stand out from the crowd and grab all the potential customers. That’s why we advise our readers to think out of the box and make some changes that are notable in order to make your company be the first pick from the people.

Slow income at the start – Getting your first new customers is without a doubt, a hard work. However, if we are speaking the truth, in which industry is easy to get the first clients? This is just a possibility; it may not be this way for you. Moreover, be ready because it’s pretty normal to have a slow income in the first few months. If you are one of the people who doesn’t give up and run your business the right way, you will definitely see progress and bigger income.

It’s hard physical job – The cleaning job is a physical job and in the early days, you need a lot invested time in order to make the job right. That means you need to do the dull movements fully on your own and carry heavy products with you. This is one of the inevitable cases if you start this business completely on your own. You can avoid all of this if you have enough money to hire a cleaning team from the beginning.

One of the crucial parts when learning how to start a cleaning service is to pay more attention on is it worth starting a cleaning service. That’s simply because that’s the part that determines the income.

While we are showing you how to start a cleaning service, must give you a list when you are starting a cleaning business. We are going to call it “starting a cleaning business checklist”. Keep in mind this is just a simple checklist, it should be longer.

All Areas of the house

Dust and clean mirrors

Dust Furniture

Vacuum Carpets

Dust Surfaces

Empty trash

Dust ceiling fans

Bathrooms

Shine fixtures

Empty trash

Vacuum floors

Spot clean cabinet fronts

Dust blinds, lock ledges and windows sills

Clean and disinfect tops

That’s in short with the checklist; let’s continue with the process of how to start a cleaning service.

How much to charge when starting a cleaning business?

Without a doubt, when learning how to start a cleaning service, pay attention to how much to charge since this is the part that determines your first income. So, before going and cleaning your first customer’s house, you need to learn how much to charge for house cleaning. Moreover, each person can do this by calculating how much time it takes for you or your staff to clean each room of the house. After that, you need to define what your hourly rate is going to be. There are multiple ways to figure this out. One of the most efficient ways to do this is to get other cleaning services in your home and get a bi-weekly approximation for your home or a friend’s home.

After the cleaning service, you called to give you the costs for the initial and bi-weekly cleaning amounts don’t forget to ask how much time it will take them for the repeated bi-weekly and initial cleaning. In addition, don’t forget to ask how many employees they are going to send to do the job.

Furthermore, take the whole cost separated by the time it will take them to clean. That number you are going to see is the hourly rate they charge. For instance, an initial cleaning that costs $200 and they need 5 hours equals to $40 on hourly basis. So basically your price per hour should be multiplied by how much time it takes to clean.

Conclusion

Well, we’ve reached our end. In this article we’ve shown you how to start a cleaning service from scratch. In addition, we also listed many positive and negative sides from the job and what to expect if you are planning on opening a cleaning service. Moreover, this article also pointed out to pay attention, especially on the legal side when opening a business. Also, each person that’s determined to start their own business should pay attention to is it worth starting a cleaning service business and how much to charge since those 2 parts are the ones that determine how much money you are going to make.